My Journey to the Lighthouse

My Journey to the Lighthouse

  • Submitted By: katyin
  • Date Submitted: 03/12/2010 7:59 PM
  • Category: Book Reports
  • Words: 1511
  • Page: 7
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My Journey To the Lighthouse
In To the lighthouse, Woolf Virginia describes mainly two days in the life of an English family, the Ramsays with their close friends, and the interaction between them. She writes with exquisite fineness, by capturing each single moment and making it a grand epic.

The book is divided into three parts: The Window, Time Passes and The Lighthouse, with the tremendous focus on the first and the third. At the very beginning, the Ramsays vacationed along the seaside of Skye, with a collection of close friends, including Lily Briscoe, William Bankes and Mr. Transley. The young son, James was upset that his father and Mr. Transley insisted the terrible weather would spoil the potential trip to the lighthouse. Despite this, other members of the party enjoyed the ordinary day but cheerful, ended with a cordial talk after dinner. Then the writer covers the ten years by a brief and lyric prose. Ten years passed by, during which the Great War had taken place, and certain family members as Mrs. Ramsay were lost along way. The last part sees the return of the Ramsays to Skye, and their visit to the lighthouse. As the family reached the lighthouse, Lily Briscoe drew inspiration from memory and completed the painting begun ten years earlier, of Mrs. Ramsay and her son.

The first few paragraphs of the book introduce me straight away to the world of Woolf’s design. I find it hard to tread on heals, through the stream of consciousness and the weave of the story. This unique writing style requires me to identify both the memory and textual patterns, from time to time, and to follow the rhythms that link the characters and their consciousness. The reading experience at first is horrible. I have to re-read between lines so as to figure out who’s talking and who’s recalling. And only by careful reading can I deduce point of view in the work. The narrative point of view in To the Lighthouse may suddenly shift among characters, leaving me alone in the...

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